Recommended Replacement Wiring for 1996 Dutchman Duck with Obsolete Wiring Harness

Question:

The harness is worn and cracked needs to be replaced. The trailer end is a 6 pole and the vehicle end is a flat 4. Dutchman no longer makes these do you offer these?

asked by: Gordon

Expert Reply:

Your best bet is to re-wire the trailer with a new 4-pole connector to match what is on your vehicle. You can use a junction box like # 38656 to join the existing trailer wiring (4 of the 6 wires, that is) to a new trailer-side 4-pole harness such as # W787268 from Wesbar, which is 8-feet long.

You will need ring terminals, 8 of them, such as # 44-5310A. The leads from the trailer and the new harness will be joined in the junction box using the ring terminals. You will want to match the wires up by function, not by color, since trailer wiring colors are not standardized.

You can test the trailer circuits by directly applying 12V power one at a time to each circuit. This will tell you what each trailer wire does. You can then match those wire functions to those on your vehicle's 4-pole wiring. Typically a 4-pole vehicle harness will have the following functions:

White wire is ground
Brown wire is running lights
Yellow wire is left turn and stop
Green wire is right turn and stop

Having a junction box installed will also make it easy to perform any other wire maintenance you'll need in the future. You may care to review the linked article on trailer wiring.